A Post-Election Flood of Economic Revisions

Nov 15, 2012

RUSH: Surprise, surprise, surprise: “Factory activity in the US mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly contracted in November.” Isn’t it amazing all of the revision we get, particularly in economic news, after the election? Factory activity contracts. Who coulda seen that coming? See, we were told the economy was back. In fact, the post-election analysis was that the reason why Romney’s economic message really fell on deaf ears toward the end of the campaign was that the economy’s back, everybody knew it. Jobs are being created, the unemployment rate was moderating, and the American people felt good about the direction the country was going, and Romney didn’t account for it. So that’s yesterday’s analysis, economy coming back.

Well, factory activity has contracted. And jobless claims are up 78,000 the week after the election. “The Department of Labor has announced that new jobless claims rose by a staggering 78,000 in the first week after the election, reaching a seasonally adjusted total of 439,000.” Just yesterday — that’s why I mention this — just yesterday the Drive-Bys were telling us that one of the reasons the Romney campaign petered out is because the economy was roaring back. Well, they didn’t say roaring back, but they said everybody got the sense we’re coming back, man, we got jobs being created, people think the country’s headed in the right direction, unemployment number. California did get their numbers in on time, but, let’s see, Hawaii, Oregon, a couple other states didn’t, so they guessed. Two or three states didn’t get their numbers in on time so they guessed.

The highest numbers — are you ready for this? Here we have jobless claims up 78,000 the week after election, the highest number of new claims for unemployment came from — dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut — Pennsylvania and Ohio, “where there were thousands of layoffs in the construction, manufacturing, and automobile industries.” But none of this was known until yesterday. Actually, this morning is when it was released. None of this was known until after the election. That’s right.

“Over the past year, and in the weeks leading up to the election, jobless claims were said to be declining, dipping as low as 339,000, with the media proclaiming that they had reached the ‘lowest level in more than four years.’ Now, suddenly, the news seems far less rosy. From the Department of Labor press release this morning: In the week ending November 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 439,000, an increase of 78,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 361,000. The 4-week moving average was 383,750. … Some of the new claims, especially in New Jersey, were due to Hurricane Sandy — but these were offset by a decline in claims filed in New York.”

How’s that possible? There were fewer claims for unemployment in New York after Hurricane Sandy, but New Jersey took the hit? How can that be? Obama went in there and had the big confab with Chris Christie. That was supposed to result in all kinds of Santa bucks. Again, just to reiterate, now, “The highest numbers of new filings came from Pennsylvania and Ohio where there were thousands of layoffs in the construction, manufacturing, and automobile industries.”